OTHER NAMES: Apsu, Engur, Engurru, Apason
TYPE: Primordial Deity of Underground waters.
ORIGIN: Mesopotamian (Sumerian)
CONSORT: Tiamat
CHILDREN: Kingu, Lahamu, Lahmu, Anu
CENTER OF CULT: Endu
INFORMATION: His center of cult was at Endu (southern Mesopotamia). He was replaced in Akkadian times by Apsu.
The Abzu or Apsu (Sumerian: abzu; Akkadian: Assyrian Assyrian apsû), also called engur ( LAGAB×HAL; Sumerian: engur; Akkadian: engurru—lit. ab='water' zu='deep', recorded in Greek as Apason), is the name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu. In Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, it is referred to as the primeval sea below the void space of the underworld (Kur) and the earth (Ma) above.
The pictogram for zu is a full measuring cup and means knowledge, scholar, wisdom. The pictogram for ab is a house, or a thatched hut, meaning father, house-father. Thus, Abzu, actually Zuab, means 'All-knowing Father' and is also the pictogram Engur, a square basin with a star in the middle as a symbol of divinity. The Cuneiform sign for river is a.engur), water that flows from the zuab/engur.
SUMERIAN COSMOLOGY: The Sumerian god Enki (Ea in the Akkadian language) was believed to have lived in the abzu since before human beings were created. His wife Damgalnuna, his mother Nammu, his advisor Isimud and a variety of subservient creatures, such as the gatekeeper Lahmu, also lived in the abzu.
AS A DEITY: Abzu (apsû) is depicted as a deity only in the Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Eliš, taken from the library of Assurbanipal (c. 630 BCE) but which is about 500 years older. In this story, he was a primal being made of fresh water and a lover to another primal deity, Tiamat, a creature of salt water. The Enuma Eliš begins: "When above the heavens (e-nu-ma e-liš) did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter, and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all; they were still mixing their waters, and no pasture land had yet been formed, nor even a reed marsh." This resulted in the birth of the younger gods, who later murdered Apsu in order to usurp his lordship of the universe. Enraged, Tiamat gives birth to the first dragons, filling their bodies with "venom instead of blood", and made war upon her treacherous children, only to be slain by Marduk, the god of Storms, who then forms the heavens and earth from her corpse.